How to Fix the Phony Budget Crisis

[Pepe]

Can you say Norway?

How about Wealth Tax??

"Times are tough. Someone has to pay. Why not start with those who can most afford it?...

"In Norway, for example, you pay one percent of your net worth in addition to income tax.

"What if we imposed a Norwegian-style wealth tax on the top one percent of U.S. households?

"We’re not talking upper middle class here: the poorest among them is worth a mere $8.3 million.

"This top one percent owns 35 percent of all wealth in the United States.

“'Such a wealth tax…would raise $191.1 billion each year (one percent of $19.1 trillion), a significant attack on the deficit,' Leon Friedman writes in The Nation. 'If we extended the tax to the top 5 percent, we could raise $338.5 billion a year (one percent of 62 percent of $54.6 trillion).'”

Tell the rich to pay up or pack up.

This proposal, like many others, could possibly merit a closer look if the Empire had responsible Leadership within the District of Corruption.

The current crop of Polytickers would simply find new ways to "buy votes" with the infusion of the Billions and the "can would continue to be kicked down the road."

A better solution is to force the scum that passes for our leaders, thanks to the illiterate, semi-literate and functionally illiterate who waddle to the Polls, to CUT 800 Billion from this year's Budget, 800 Billion from the FY2012 Budget and 800 Billion from the FY2013 Budget.

These are the cuts required to get close to a Balanced Budget.

 

[georgephillip]

How much of the $800 billion would you advocate cutting from Defense spending?

 

[Pepe]

How much of the $800 billion would you advocate cutting from Defense spending?

Whatever the "ratio" demands but we are not talking about fairness.

We are talking about is forcing our "Elected" Leaders to do exactly what the were elected to do...................prioritize and make the tough calls.

My grandchildren and their grandchildren should not be forced to pay for the reckless spending and malfeasance of both Dems & Pubs.

 

[georgephillip]

Who could expect anything less than pure socialism from a man who professes to working his entire life (65 years) at minimum wage jobs.

Earth to stupid the wealthy already pay what, 60% of the tax dollars and a dumbass like you is telling the people who pay the taxes to leave the country! Liberalism is a mental disorder!

Can you say Norway?

How about Wealth Tax??

"Times are tough. Someone has to pay. Why not start with those who can most afford it?...

"In Norway, for example, you pay one percent of your net worth in addition to income tax.

"What if we imposed a Norwegian-style wealth tax on the top one percent of U.S. households?

"We’re not talking upper middle class here: the poorest among them is worth a mere $8.3 million.

"This top one percent owns 35 percent of all wealth in the United States.

“'Such a wealth tax…would raise $191.1 billion each year (one percent of $19.1 trillion), a significant attack on the deficit,' Leon Friedman writes in The Nation. 'If we extended the tax to the top 5 percent, we could raise $338.5 billion a year (one percent of 62 percent of $54.6 trillion).'”

Tell the rich to pay up or pack up.

I didn't get a dime from Wall Street's latest $13 trillion socialist bonanza.

How about you and yours?

Any speculators hiding in your wood shed?

The rich don't get rich by paying taxes or interest or shedding their blood in war. They get rich on other people's money and blood.

Which probably explains why you never miss a chance to lead the cheers for the parasites.

 

[georgephillip]

Can you say Norway?

Not with a straight face.


Norway, now there's an economic powerhouse worthy of emulation...
NOT!

"The Norwegian economy is a prosperous bastion of welfare capitalism, featuring a combination of free market activity and government intervention.

"The government controls key areas, such as the vital petroleum sector, through large-scale state-majority-owned enterprises.

"The country is richly endowed with natural resources - petroleum, hydropower, fish, forests, and minerals - and is highly dependent on the petroleum sector, which accounts for nearly half of exports and over 30% of state revenue.

"Norway is the world's second-largest gas exporter; its position as an oil exporter has slipped to ninth-largest as production has begun to decline.

"Norway opted to stay out of the EU during a referendum in November 1994; nonetheless, as a member of the European Economic Area, it contributes sizably to the EU budget. In anticipation of eventual declines in oil and gas production, Norway saves state revenue from the petroleum sector in the world's second largest sovereign wealth fund, valued at over $500 billion in 2010.

"After solid GDP growth in 2004-07, the economy slowed in 2008, and contracted in 2009, before returning to positive growth in 2010."

CIA - Norway

 

[georgephillip]

If you don't think the rich are benefiting from your demise your stupid. The jobs going over seas and the robots doing mens jobs have left you without work. Have you seen anything that cost less from this happening? Hell NO.

The truth is the top wage earners of corp's have gone from from being 40 times the average workers wage and now is around 100 times the average for all of them, and now is As high as 550 times for those at the top.

The truth is they own the system and it is stacked to keep the rich richer and the main way they can do it is you lose your job and someone else works harder or they ship it to some third world country.

Sooner or later some of you got to wise up and notice that your neighbor isn't your enemy, it's those who want to own this country and are getting a lot of help from guys like you. Some day you might figure it out, they aren't going to provide you with a job unless it benefits them. 200 million people benefiting 1 million and you think they need to be left alone to go after the rest of what America has.

My demise? Wow!!

My troubles are my own fault and no one else is to blame. No one, period!!

Decisions I made in the past like choosing to get married and raise children and forgo working to get my CPA have put me in the place I am today. Nothing the rich did caused my problems.

The excuses you are trying to give me are nothing more than the lack of personal responsibility.

Immie

Arguably the rich in the US were responsible for putting you into a position where you had to choose between family and education. There is nothing carved in stone to make such a "choice" mandatory.

That is a distinct consequence of capitalism.

In other Economic systems if you had the grades to pursue a CPA the state would have supplied the money necessary as an investment in its increased future productivity.

I suspect many of us who grow up in this system die before realizing there are other options; however, those options don't include manufacturing billionaires from Credit Default Swaps.

Or killing other people's children for money and market share.

 

[georgephillip]

Txation is a ZERO sum game IF

1. The government doesn't decrease spending to give tax breaks to one class, while not giving it to another.

How could they possible be otherwise?

"(Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke) largely repeated what he has been saying recently. It was interesting only for its likewise repeated silences which, as so often, spoke loudly.

"The biggest silence concerned taxing corporations and the rich in the US.

"Many sentences were devoted to the burdens of the huge deficits being run by the US government, to the need to reduce those deficits.

"Otherwise, Bernanke warned, lenders might one day stop providing those immense flows into the US Treasury.

"But not one word about reducing the deficit by taxing large corporations and the rich.

"On Tuesday, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer announced a modest tax increase on banks in the UK: a 'fair contribution', he said, 'to our recovery'.

"No such idea, let alone any action, in the US."

US Government will never consider reducing the deficit by taxing corporations and the richest individuals until Republicans AND Democrats vanish from the page of time.

Ben Bernanke's silence..

 

[Immanuel]

If you don't think the rich are benefiting from your demise your stupid. The jobs going over seas and the robots doing mens jobs have left you without work. Have you seen anything that cost less from this happening? Hell NO.

The truth is the top wage earners of corp's have gone from from being 40 times the average workers wage and now is around 100 times the average for all of them, and now is As high as 550 times for those at the top.

The truth is they own the system and it is stacked to keep the rich richer and the main way they can do it is you lose your job and someone else works harder or they ship it to some third world country.

Sooner or later some of you got to wise up and notice that your neighbor isn't your enemy, it's those who want to own this country and are getting a lot of help from guys like you. Some day you might figure it out, they aren't going to provide you with a job unless it benefits them. 200 million people benefiting 1 million and you think they need to be left alone to go after the rest of what America has.

My demise? Wow!!

My troubles are my own fault and no one else is to blame. No one, period!!

Decisions I made in the past like choosing to get married and raise children and forgo working to get my CPA have put me in the place I am today. Nothing the rich did caused my problems.

The excuses you are trying to give me are nothing more than the lack of personal responsibility.

Immie

Arguably the rich in the US were responsible for putting you into a position where you had to choose between family and education. There is nothing carved in stone to make such a "choice" mandatory.

That is a distinct consequence of capitalism.

In other Economic systems if you had the grades to pursue a CPA the state would have supplied the money necessary as an investment in its increased future productivity.

I suspect many of us who grow up in this system die before realizing there are other options; however, those options don't include manufacturing billionaires from Credit Default Swaps.

Or killing other people's children for money and market share.

I would have to disagree with your first paragraph. The decision was mine and mine alone. I will admit it was not that well thought out. It was not money that kept me from attaining that goal although I could not afford Ivy league, I chose not to pursue it for personal reasons. It was the decision that I made because I was happy with my job and life at the time and I did not think far enough ahead.

I had worked my way through college. I worked full time during the day and went to school full time at night. I had a wife and two daughters for most of that time and a son for the last few months of my schooling. When it came to the decision to study for the CPA Exam, I had had enough. I decided to put it off. Now, thirty years later, it is too damned late. First, in Florida I would need my Master's to get it whereas in California when I was at that point, I didn't need the Master's. I only needed to work for a CPA for two years for on the job training. That job would have paid less than I made at the time. I chose to stick with what I was making and not take the lower paying job... note I CHOSE. Also, the CPA requires one to be up to date on all the current laws. I've worked in the real world long enough to have allowed the bad habits to sink in, I probably couldn't pass the CPA now if I wanted to even with a refresher course.

Suffice it to say, I made my bed and now I have to lay in it.

Blaming the rich is just looking for a scapegoat. I'm not interested. And besides, even if it were true, there is nothing I can do about it now.

Immie

 

[Big Fitz]

Arguably the rich in the US were responsible for putting you into a position where you had to choose between family and education.

This is opinion, not fact. I'd like to see some real evidence to back up this assertion that the rich are (since you state responsibility) doing this.

That is a distinct consequence of capitalism.

No, it's not. It's your assertion, with no proof.

In other Economic systems if you had the grades to pursue a CPA the state would have supplied the money necessary as an investment in its increased future productivity.

A whole mess of emotional assumptions here, but first answer this question: Who does the government get their money from? Secondly, is it a constitutionally enumerated power in which the government could or SHOULD pay for anyone's education?

For someone who hates the government picking winners and losers, you sure advocate it on the individual level. How about we just go and have the government decide your career while you're in grade school. Hell with what you may want to do or be good at. If the government needs more electricans, guess who's being an electrician. If we have too many CPAs, guess who's going to end up a baker or roofer?

If it is wrong for the government to pick companies to do jobs by fiat, how much more evil is this?

I suspect many of us who grow up in this system die before realizing there are other options; however, those options don't include manufacturing billionaires from Credit Default Swaps.

Oh this should be a hoot. Such as? ... he asks knowingly...

Or killing other people's children for money and market share.

Prove a conspiracy to murder children or commit manslaughter by negligence. You're chucking around serious allegations with no evidence, only overwrought personal opinion.

 

[georgephillip]

You don't have to look very far to see options to Finance Capitalism

"The reason, Douglas concluded, was that the economic system was organized to maximize profits for those with economic power by creating unnecessary scarcity.[4]"

Are you too indoctrinated to examine them?

 

[GHook93]

Get dead beat fucking parasites like you that have never contributed anything to the betterment of America, off the Welfare Tit and actually make poverty case Marxist like you earn something and give back to America!

You don't have to look very far to see options to Finance Capitalism

"The reason, Douglas concluded, was that the economic system was organized to maximize profits for those with economic power by creating unnecessary scarcity.[4]"

Are you too indoctrinated to examine them?

 

[georgephillip]

What do you contribute besides racist stupidity?

 

[Big Fitz]

What do you contribute besides racist stupidity?

And dropping the race card. yeah, that'll help your argument.

Still waiting on a shitload of proof from you on any of these allegations.

 

[skeptic]

Can you say Norway?

How about Wealth Tax??

"Times are tough. Someone has to pay. Why not start with those who can most afford it?...

"In Norway, for example, you pay one percent of your net worth in addition to income tax.

"What if we imposed a Norwegian-style wealth tax on the top one percent of U.S. households?

"We’re not talking upper middle class here: the poorest among them is worth a mere $8.3 million.

"This top one percent owns 35 percent of all wealth in the United States.

“'Such a wealth tax…would raise $191.1 billion each year (one percent of $19.1 trillion), a significant attack on the deficit,' Leon Friedman writes in The Nation. 'If we extended the tax to the top 5 percent, we could raise $338.5 billion a year (one percent of 62 percent of $54.6 trillion).'”

Tell the rich to pay up or pack up.

This proposal, like many others, could possibly merit a closer look if the Empire had responsible Leadership within the District of Corruption.

The current crop of Polytickers would simply find new ways to "buy votes" with the infusion of the Billions and the "can would continue to be kicked down the road."

A better solution is to force the scum that passes for our leaders, thanks to the illiterate, semi-literate and functionally illiterate who waddle to the Polls, to CUT 800 Billion from this year's Budget, 800 Billion from the FY2012 Budget and 800 Billion from the FY2013 Budget.

These are the cuts required to get close to a Balanced Budget.

"District of Corruption"? You may be a champion.

 

[skeptic]

I didn't get a dime from Wall Street's latest $13 trillion socialist bonanza.

Of course you did, everybody in the USA did. You just don't know it. When the Federal Government injects $1.4 trillion/year into the economy for 3 years that stimulus reaches everybody.

What is not so clear is whether you will ever pay a dime for that free gift.

 

[skeptic]

In other Economic systems if you had the grades to pursue a CPA the state would have supplied the money necessary as an investment in its increased future productivity.

Do CPA's actually produce anything real of value? Aren't accounting services just another useless drain on real productivity much the same way that taxation is at least 90% of the time?

I mean I get the service economy: recycle existing revenue so that more people enjoy employment indirectly generated from truly productive enterprises. Secondary and tertiary economies compound the benefits of primary economic activity. But the service sector has a larger onus to justify it's existence (much like public employees).

Take insurance. Insurance might provide a useful service. But would doubling the costs of insurance and the number of folks employed in that industry justify it's costs?

No, it wouldn't. Esp when things like health care are subordinated to secondary service streams at the mercy of insurance.

Service sector jobs provide few products and little productivity as a very general rule. Therefore they are burdened with a greater need to justify their existence and performance.

Prostitution is a service sector enterprise.

 

[georgephillip]

I didn't get a dime from Wall Street's latest $13 trillion socialist bonanza.

Of course you did, everybody in the USA did. You just don't know it. When the Federal Government injects $1.4 trillion/year into the economy for 3 years that stimulus reaches everybody.

What is not so clear is whether you will ever pay a dime for that free gift.

Only the "happy 2%" saw any dimes from transferring billions of dollars of private debt onto the backs of taxpayers.

"Thanks largely to the $13 trillion Wall Street bailout – while keeping the debt overhead in place for America’s 'bottom 98 per cent – this happy 2 per cent of the population now receives an estimated three quarters (~75 per cent) of the returns to wealth (interest, dividends, rent and capital gains).

"This is nearly double what it received a generation ago. The rest of the population is being squeezed, and foreclosures are rising."

[URL="http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson11152010.html"]Michael Hudson[/URL]